The Definition of Madness
by Rizzle
Summary: Baltar and 6. An interlude.


They always ended up in his bedroom. Inevitably. Unfailingly. Predictably.

Six looked positively illegal spread out on his rust-coloured sheets. The sheets were silk this time. Other times they were Egyptian cotton with delightful little cashmere covered cushions. He really ought to stop to marvel at the fact that his brain managed to conjure up new bedding each time they had one of their mental trysts.

Somewhere, buried deep in his subconscious, he realised that he was walking down a corridor with the painfully young President's aid, Billy. Gaius had never stopped to inquire what the boy's last name was. Maybe you didn't get to have your last name barked at you, military style, until you were at least old enough to shave a decent beard. How old was the boy anyway? Twenty?

Gaius had won his first Magnate prize at that age...

Today however, Billy was leading the way, and Gaius was following.

One foot in front of the other seemed easy enough, even if your mind was engaging in very satisfying imaginary sex with a very beautiful, very devout, robot. No telling how long he was out of the loop this time. The tick and the tock was fluid whenever he had one of his 'lapses'. She had appeared, somewhere after the mess hall, but before the tech labs, wearing an outfit consisting of strategically positioned strips of Kingfisher-blue silk.

Gaius loved blue on a woman. Or _off_ a woman. He really wasn't fussy.

They were in the upstairs hallway of his beautiful, seaside home on Caprica, and he was discovering that knots were as frustrating as they were erotic. Fresh, salty air and sunshine blew through the open, accordion style doors.

_Always the bedroom._

It wasn't that the rest of his home - six bedrooms, for frack's sake - wasn't equally nice. It was just that there was something about the view from his bedroom balcony which brought out the best in them, both physically and spiritually.

They always ended up talking about God. Or she did, rather.

They would finish, and then she would _start_. Though sometimes she started _before_ they finished, which was to say that she would exclaim, "Oh my God," at all the right moments _during_.

That was entirely acceptable.

Ideally, the only third party Gaius ever wanted in bed with him and Six was a run of the mill mortal female. He was rather fond of ménage a trois. And blondes, though at one time, Gaius might have made an exception for a certain Fleet pilot who went by the call sign 'Boomer'.

"Why do you think they call her that?" he recalled Six pondering, once, with an intoxicating combination of jealousy and mischief.

_Why indeed?_

Gaius had to seriously consider that he might just have a thing for Cylon women. If so, then the verdict was still out on whether the formidable but damnably alluring Kara Thrace was a hundred percent, original, born and bred human woman.

Perhaps he just liked strong women. Or women in positions of authority. Lately, he was surrounded by them.

They had progressed to the balcony now, and Gaius was glad. He did not question the fact that it was always summer when he was with her, or the fact that the ocean was always a friendly, frothy, calming shade of blue – neither too angry nor too dull and the exact hue of Six's eyes.

He wondered at how much control Six had over their surroundings. Did she control the setting, or was it all him? His ego liked to believe it was the latter.

"Restless, Gaius?" Six asked, sidling up beside him. She didn't walk like normal people. She slinked and prowled. Hell, She didn't _look_ like normal people. There was a definite feline quality about her.

Gaius recalled the first time her ever saw her.

_Too tall for me,_ was probably his first thought, followed by something incomprehensible and primitive switching on in his brain. Like a Neolithic cave-dweller discovering fire for the first time. There was awe and there was reverence and then there was the thrill that came from initiating the chase.

He did not believe in love at first sight and was not at all surprised to find out that she did. She seemed like that sort of girl.

"I'm thinking about Earth again," Gaius admitted. "I hadn't expected a planetarium type revelation at the end of that horrible ordeal on Kobol. It was very..." he searched for the right word and found it, along with a wry smile, "abstract."

Frankly, he found the whole zodiac business a bit hokey at the time, but the looks of rapture on the faces of his fellow mission mates had waylaid any remarks.

"God's message doesn't always consist of blue prints or co-ordinates, Gaius," she replied, in that faintly condescending way he thought he would never be able to get used to.

She pushed a lock of his dark hair from his forehead. "You learn to look for the signs."

He gave her a sideways glance intended to convey just how long-suffering he was. "I've been looking for the signs that will tell me if you're a product of my delusional mind."

She wrapped her arms around him from behind, and being a few inches a taller than he was, was able to rest her chin against the back of his head.

_Legs_. That was the other first thing he had thought when he first laid eyes on her. Best legs on a woman, ever, ever, _ever_.

"And what does your heart tell you?" Six asked.

"That I need to stop putting it through too much stress or it's going to give out," he responded, entirely serious.

"Which is why we have our little visits, for you to recharge both mind and body." She smiled and then slid away from him, padding barefoot across the sun-warmed decking, and stretched out on a wooden divan.

Gaius stared. How could he not? Only Six could make Walking From Point A To Point B look like the entire movement had been choreographed by a team of experts. She raised a knee and beckoned at him with one long, slender, finger.

"It's not your time to die yet."

Gaius raised an eyebrow. "And you know when I am to die? What, when God's plan for me runs it's highly mysterious course?"

She gave him a pitying look. "Sometimes I think being a scientist impairs your creativity. God's plan doesn't always run a straight line. He has a purpose for all of us."

"What's your purpose?" he asked her. He had a few guesses, but he didn't need to say them out loud, considering she had taken up residence in his head. She heard, saw, felt, knew all he was about.

The seductive look she gave him was answer enough. She patted the space next to her.

"What's His divine plan now, do you think? Right this very moment?" he went to her, happy and expectant like a puppy led on a leash.

"Um, we're about to have a Press Conference, Doctor Baltar," Billy the Aid said. He was looking at Gaius oddly, as were the members of the security detail that stood around them.

President Roslyn was already in the room, along with the sound of a dozen camera flashes going off. Coming down the corridor was Commander Adama, looking grimmer than usual.

Gaius blinked, and then looked up at Billy, smiling. The return to reality was always abrupt and unpleasant. It was like being awakened from a deep sleep or from a particularly enjoyable dream.

"Doctor Baltar?" Billy asked again, concerned showing in his amiable brown eyes.

"I'm ready," Gaius nodded. He had grown rather adept at hiding the fact that for a third of the time, he was _somewhere else_ entirely.

"This way, then, Mr. Vice President," Billy ushered.

Gaius hesitated for a moment, before sucking in a deep breath and walking through the doors.

Six was there of course. She was always in the periphery of his consciousness; standing in a corner of the conference room, still in her blue dress, watching.


End file.
